Omeka: Metadata and Content Organization Guide: Adding Plugins

Finding Plugins

Many of the advanced features of Omeka are available through plugins. To find plugins, visit the Plugins Page on the Omeka website. Look for the 2.0 Compatible tag before you download. Plugins for Omeka 1.0 will not work and will break your Omeka installation if you try to use them.

Look for more information about each plugin by clicking on the More Info button on the right. This usually takes you to the Plugin's GitHub page, where you can find documentation in the form of a ReadMe. When you decide you do want a particular plugin, click on the red Download Latest button and save the file to your desktop.

Sometimes there is not enough documentation available to determine whether the plugin would be useful. When that happens, a good place to look for more information is the Omeka Plugin Forum. Because Omeka is open source, plugins are being developed all over the world. This means information on plugins isn't always available in a central location. If you aren't finding what you need on the main Omeka site, try searching Google or another search engine for 'Omeka [name of plugin]'.

Once you find a plugin you want to try, click on 'Download Latest' and follow the instructions in Installing Plugins.

You may find Omeka plugins that are not listed on the main Omeka site. For example, the BookReader plugin. Regard these as experimental. Many of them do work and may be the only way to achieve the desired effect, but they may require extra work to set up or may have bugs. You may want to set up a separate Omeka test site to try these out and make sure that they won't break anything. You can email kperdue@umw.edu if you have questions about this or want help setting something up.

Installing Plugins

Installing plugins for Omeka is not hard, but you will need a few things first.

First, you need an FTP Client. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It's a common way to transfer files across networks. One of the most popular FTP clients is Filezilla. You can download it here. If you don't want to download a program or you have trouble getting Filezilla to work, there is also a Firefox add-on called FireFTP, available here. These directions will assume that you are using Filezilla, but FireFTP or any other FTP client should be very similar.

Second, you need the zip file containing the Omeka plugin you want to install. For help finding this, read Finding Plugins above.

Third, you need to have already set up Omeka. For instructions, go here.

Finally, you need an FTP account. If your copy of Omeka is on your Domain of One's Own site, you already have this. You should be able to log in using the same username and password that you use to access Domain of One's Own. If you are using something else, you may need to ask your professor or DTLT to set up an account for you. Your account only needs to be able to access the Omeka directory.

1. Unzip the plugin file. You should get a single folder that has the same name as the plugin. If it's not named the same thing (for example, if it's named 'plugin-master') make a note of this. It may cause problems later.

2. Open Filezilla. If should look like this:

Click on the icon next to the down arrow (circled in red) to add a new connection.

3. You will see a menu that looks like this:

Click on New Site and type in a name (this will probably be the name of your website). For Host, put in the URL of your website. For example, my website is halsuisseo.org, so that's what I would put in. Choose Port 22 and choose SFPT for Protocol. Under Logon Type, choose Ask for password. User is your FTP account username, which, if you're using Domain of One's Own, is the same as your Domain of One's Own username. Click on Connect.

4. You will be prompted to put in your password. If the connection is succcessful, Filezilla should change to look like this:

On the left side, you will see files on your own computer. On the right side, you will see files on your website.

5. Navigate to Omeka's Plugin directory. Your website may be set up differently, but you will probably find this under public_html/Omeka/plugins, or maybe just public_html/plugins. It should look something like this:

6. The easiest way to add the plugin is just to drag the folder you unzipped in step one into the plugins folder. Click on the refresh button (find it in the menu bar at the top; it looks like this: ). You should now be able to see the folder you added. You are now done with FTP.

7. Log on to your Omeka site. Click on Plugins in the menu at the top left corner.

8. On the next screen, you should see your plugin together with a bright green install button. If your plugin shows up, but there is an error message that says it's not a valid Omeka plugin, or if your plugin does not show up at all, go back to the plugins folder in Filezilla. Check to see that the folder is really there and that it's named the same thing as the plugin. If the folder is named something like 'plugin-master', right click on it and rename it to remove '-master'.

Click on the install button. Your plugin should install and you should be redirected to the configuration screen for your plugin.